SAFAVID SHIRAZ, IRAN, CIRCA 1580

Details

THE COURT OF GAYUMARS
SAFAVID SHIRAZ, IRAN, CIRCA 1580
An illustration from the Shahnama of Firdawsi, Gayumars sits cross-legged upon a tiger skin rug in a landscape, around him courtiers kneel and stand, all wearing white leopard skin or brown tiger skin robes, above and below four columns each containing 3ll. of black nasta'liq in clouds reserved against gold ground, verso with four columns of 17ll. written both horizontally and on the diagonal, one heading in white nasta'liq on gold ground, text panels outlined in gold and polychrome, folio with some creasing, mounted
Painting 9 x 6 5/8in. (22.4 x 17cm.); folio 9¾ x 7¼in. (24.5 x 18.3cm.)

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Lot Essay

The depiction of the animals with their heads twisted to face various angles and the flowering foliage which is lighter than the darker green background is similar to a copy of the Majlis al-‘Ushshaq of Gazurgahi which is attributed to Shiraz, circa 1580 and is now in the Topkapi Saray Museum Library in Istanbul (inv. H.829; Lale Uluç, Turkman Governors Shiraz Artisans and Ottoman collectors: Sixteenth Century Shiraz Manuscripts, Istanbul 2006, no.135, p.190).

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